Reply by Kelby

Lots of people have debunked this myth. There’s never been a documented case of static discharge causing a fire/explosion in a dust collection system. People with much more science background than me have put a lot of material on the web explaining why it doesn’t happen.

As someone else posted in a link above, wood dust is highly flammable. However, invariably, the cause of fires is a spark or hot piece of metal that gets sucked into the system because a saw blade hit a nail in the material, not static discharge.

Keep a fire extinguisher handy, and always use a metal detector before you cut your material.